Archinect - News

Rafael Pelli talks about the shifting dynamics of his newly renamed firm

2021-12-06T16:56:00-05:00

One of the biggest desires right now is for flexibility. How can you create spaces that can be repurposed for multifunctional spaces, so you can have a big dinner with a catering kitchen, then close the doors and make it a yoga room? It’s key now to think flexibly about the use of space, then think about flexibility over time, meaning how spaces might evolve.

Rafael Pelli, the son of influential high-rise designer César Pelli, recently talked to Mansion Global about some of the design challenges and new mandates that have taken over the industry in the time following his father’s death in July of 2019.

“Urban cores will go back to being largely what they were,” the architect said. “The very factors that led to their existence and growth remain — it’s that need to communicate, together. At root of that is a basic belief that a lot of really useful things happen outside of a formal meeting [...] That’s not replaced by technology.”

Related on Archinect: In Praise of César Pelli's Quirky Corners

Pelli also commented on the firm’s recent name change, which he says was meant to shift the narrative away from the damaging Great Man archetype of designers as embodied in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

“The most important change was to recognize there’s a core group of people who’ve been working at the firm almost since the beginning. There’s a tende...

Pelli Clarke Pelli's Google Tower is ahead of schedule

2021-08-24T17:25:00-04:00

Block 185 or “Google Tower,” the future site of Google’s regional headquarters in Austin, Texas, is ahead of schedule according to Construction Dive.

Construction of the 35-story office building, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and STG Design for developers Trammell Crow Company, began in March 2019 and was originally scheduled for completion in August 2022. However, this has been pushed forward to May, and in July, it was reported that the tower has topped out at 590 feet.

Previously on Archinect: Pelli Clarke Pelli's Austin tower for Google is making progress

As detailed by Construction Dive, a series of techniques were employed to keep the project ahead of schedule. Executives at DPR Construction, the project’s general contractor, highlighted these beneficial factors, which include: quick adjustments to working amidst the pandemic, early access to materials, access to a large amount of storage space, a strong workforce, great relationships with strategic partners and s...

Pelli Clarke Pelli's Austin tower for Google is making progress

2021-04-13T15:24:00-04:00

Block 185, the downtown Austin office tower project best known as the future home of Google, has made significant progress since its groundbreaking back in the downright prehistoric era of 2019 — and though it hasn’t reached its full height of 594 feet just yet, the 35-floor building’s ever-growing prominence on the downtown skyline is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook.

The 35-story Block 185 office tower, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with the local office of STG Design for developers Trammell Crow Company, will be Google's regional HQ in Austin. Completion is scheduled in 2022.

Previously on Archinect: Pelli Clarke Pelli, Gensler projects reshape Austin's skyline

Salesforce Transit Center's structural fiasco saga revisited

2019-10-29T18:46:00-04:00

The cracks discovered beneath the rooftop park were classic brittle fractures. The tapered 4-inch-thick steel beams—2.5 feet wide and 60 feet long, with a horizontal flange on the bottom—undergirded the 5.4-acre park on the building’s fourth level, and buttressed the roof of the bus deck on the second level. By themselves, the cracks formed a point of weakness with potentially hazardous consequences. But they also suggested the possibility of a larger crisis.

Popular Mechanics offer a detailed recap of the events following the discovery of two cracked structural steel beams in the brand new $2.2 billion, Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco in 2018.

Pelli Clarke Pelli, Gensler projects reshape Austin's skyline

2019-09-29T15:00:00-04:00

We’ve got downtown Austin condos, apartments, offices, and hotels rising all around us in shiny new tower form these days, to the point where it’s kinda hard to keep the projects around the city straight even if you’re paying attention.

Forthcoming projects include a 35-story office building designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli for developers Trammell Crow Company that will serve as a regional headquarters for Google, as well as Gensler's 6 X Guadalupe tower, a 66-story, 848-foot residential and office tower that would become the city's tallest structure when completed.

Pelli Clarke Pelli unveils designs for tallest skyscrapers in Japan

2019-08-29T13:30:00-04:00

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (PCP) and Japanese "urban landscape developer" Mori Building have unveiled renderings for a new "modern urban village" slated for Tokyo's Minato City. PCP has designed the project's three towers, including the project's centerpiece, a 1,080-foot spire slated to be the tallest building in Japan when completed.

Rending by DBOX for Mori Building Co.

The bulging, glass-wrapped tower is capped by a floral top and will contain a mix of offices, residences, and retail spaces. The two adjacent towers that make up the complex feature a mix of residential, office, and hotel spaces. According to a press release announcing the project, the towers were designed under the guidance of the late architect César Pelli.

The towers are embedded within a 20-acre site that has been designed by Heatherwick Studio. Heatherwick's domain includes the project's public realm and "lower level architecture," according to a press release. Earlier this month, renderings were unveiled...

César Pelli has passed away

2019-07-19T23:57:00-04:00

Argentina’s Telam state news agency reported his passing on Friday, as did the governor of Tucuman province, where Pelli grew up and spent his formative years. “With much regret we receive the sad news of the death of the great Architect César Pelli,” the region’s governor, Juan Manzur, said in a post on Twitter. “I want to convey my condolences to his whole family, his friends and his team.”

César Pelli, a prolific and relentlessly inventive architect who has shaped the skylines of major cities from Los Angeles to San Francisco, New York City, and Kuala Lumpur, has passed away at age 92.

News of Pelli’s death came from Argentina’s state news service Friday afternoon, according to Reuters.

Pelli Clarke Pelli development will reshape Toronto skyline

2019-07-01T14:46:00-04:00

Pelli Clarke Pelli, Adamson Associates, OJB Landscape Architecture, and developers Oxford Properties Group have unveiled plans for Union Park, a 4.3 million-square-foot marquee development that could reshape the Toronto skyline.

View of the proposed rail yard cap park. Image courtesy of Oxford Properties Group.

The multi-towered development will bring 3.3 million square feet of offices, 800 residential units, and 200,000 square feet of "high quality retail" to a central site in downtown Toronto. The development is arranged into three towers, with the project's two office skyscrapers designed as near-mirror images of one another. A third tower will include housing, including units designed specifically for families, as well as a new 8,500-square-foot daycare facility, among other amenities. The exact height of each of the towers has not been released, but renderings for the project indicate that Toronto's CN Tower will continue to live on as the city's tallest structure.

The project...

Pelli Clarke Pelli-Designed Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco to Reopen July 1

2019-06-11T19:40:00-04:00

Eight months after the discovery of cracked steel girders forced its closure, the Transbay transit center is safe to reopen, an independent panel of engineers and experts has concluded. The reopening is set for 6 a.m. July 1.

A five-member peer-review committee appointed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has approved a series of recently-completed structural repairs made to the Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco.

Workers repair damaged structural beams at the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Frank Schulenburg.

A pair of cracked structural steel beams were discovered in one section of the building just after the transit center opened late last year. Months of independent investigation and testing discerned that the beams cracked because a series of welding access holes that had been made to the steel beams to allow for their installation.

The affected beams were replaced and now, as Therese McMillan, MTC's executive director tells The San Francisco Chronicle, “The steel structure is sound for continued service."

San Francisco’s shiny new Salesforce Transit Center remains closed as it faces more problems

2018-10-25T14:52:00-04:00

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority voted unanimously Tuesday to freeze $9.7 million in sales tax funding for the next phase of the Transbay Transit Center, as members called for an evaluation of the beleaguered project and the agency that runs it. The news came as Transbay officials again pushed back the date to complete testing of steel from two cracked beams that led to shutting down the building in September.

Facade detail. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

San Francisco’s brand new Transbay Transit Center (also know as Salesforce Transit Center) can't catch a break: after the long anticipated $2.2 billion transportation hub at Mission and Fremont Streets had to close again when cracks in several steel beams appeared shortly following its August grand opening, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority now also voted to put public funding on hold and investigate where things went wrong.

Metal probes extracted from the steel beams are currently being lab-tested, and the reopening date hinges on these results but isn't expected before mid-November, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

San Francisco’s new $2.2 billion Salesforce Transit Center closed after 2nd steel beam cracks

2018-09-27T17:48:00-04:00

San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center will remain closed at least through the end of next week, officials said Wednesday, after yet another cracked beam was discovered during an overnight safety inspection. The $2.2 billion hub for buses and eventually trains, which opened just last month as the flashy centerpiece of city infrastructure, was closed abruptly Tuesday afternoon after a fissure was spotted in a beam that helps hold up the sprawling complex.

In a statement issued on September 26, Executive Director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, Mark Zabaneh, said: "We apologize for this inconvenience to the public and commuters. I would like to assure the public, this is a localized issue within the transit center and there is no impact to any adjacent properties. Additionally, our current analysis shows that this is contained within the Fremont Street area. The safety of everyone who visits the Salesforce Transit Center is our highest priority and we will work expeditiously to address and rectify this situation."

Meanwhile, not far away from the Transit Center, another sizable, troubled San Francisco building struggles to stay structurally sound: the sinking Millennium Tower risks getting yellow-tagged by the city if its newly appeared cracks aren't being addressed.

Largest skyscraper on West Coast, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, approved for San Francisco Transbay Transit Center

2012-10-19T14:04:00-04:00

A 1,070-foot tower that will become the largest skyscraper on the West Coast received its final approvals from the Planning Commission on Thursday.

Clarke also showed the Planning Commission the actual metal and glass that will be used on the exterior of the building. He explained that the skin of the building has been augmented to add metalwork that will grow deeper and denser at the bottom of the tower. Clarke said adding the metal to the glass exterior will give the building a light texture that will glow in an ambient way.

The metalwork also was used to make the building safer for birds and to help control the flow of water down the structure.

Some people speaking about the project decried the tower as being too large and criticized its design.

NOTE: image has been update per Mark Hogan's tip in the comments